Facebook Strives to Make Products Safer for Teens

Facebook and its products have been under the scrutiny of the authorities for a long time. It is associated with many problems at once, including political polarization, advertising opacity, negative impact on teens, and many others. In response to all kinds of checks, the company tries to improve its services. In particular, representatives of Facebook last week said they plan to introduce new measures aimed at repelling youth from inappropriate content.

According to the company VP Nick Clegg, they are going to analyze search queries coming from young people. If a user regularly views the same content that falls under the concept of "unwanted," the system will see it and direct them to other topics. How the algorithms will evaluate such data, Clegg has not yet explained. Besides, the developers will also introduce a feature that will offer teens to take a break from viewing Instagram.

Recall that not so long ago, thanks to the WSJ, it became known about the company's internal investigation, according to which the developers knew that the use of Instagram harms users' mental health, especially teenage girls. As Nick Clegg said at a congressional meeting, the company froze the development of Instagram for Kids and began introducing additional security measures.

Senators demand increased control over such services and the introduction of actions to protect teens from unwanted information. Moreover, lawmakers believe there is a need to revise the privacy policies of many tech giants and make the algorithms responsible for content selection more transparent.

Do you agree with the authorities' opinion that Facebook and similar services harm teens' mental health, and therefore it's necessary to tighten control over them? Will it break the principles of freedom of speech and choice?